


i can’t keep you in these arms (so i’ll keep you in my mind)

by shenpai



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Character Analysis, F/M, aka rogue reflects on her love life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 08:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shenpai/pseuds/shenpai
Summary: In the end, it’s always Remy. It has always been Remy.But sometimes that’s just not enough.





	i can’t keep you in these arms (so i’ll keep you in my mind)

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime during the 2017 Astonishing X-Men run. Title quote is taken from You And I by PVRIS.

Mayfair in November; a pale strawberry dawn hanging in the aperture above rows of Georgian architecture and freshly snuffed out street lamps. The world is all but remote at this hour, ethereal and serene, and Rogue watches the quiet mill of faceless strangers as they pass her by with barely registered interest. The hood of her black parka is drawn over her head, scarf pulled down from her mouth a notch so that she can sip at the fresh hot chocolate cupped between velvet swathed fingers, and her thoughts are full of nothing and everything at once.

Every now and again, her eyes will snag on a couple as they stroll past her in varying displays of ardor. Some of them are tangled in a lovers embrace, huddled together for warmth in the morning mist, while others seek out shared heat with hands twined and lips interlocked. Each one of them is oblivious to her staring as they go by, and if they are not, they save her the shame of showing it.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to come here.

Watching them as they trail by serves as a memoir of sorts; a painful reminder of all the times she has tried and failed to be more than what she is. For all that she is a mutant, an X-Man, a hero, she is still human. And she is lonely.

Seeing Gambit again had already been enough pain for her to endure; the welts of her heart not yet fully healed from the last time they had gone around in those same familiar circles of hapless romance and fallen apart once again in the aftermath. But her time with him in the Astral Plane had only served to increase the injury tenfold, and it was like digging the knife in all over again only to watch the blood spill out on to the floor with nothing left to give but her everlasting grief.

For a moment, she thinks she can still feel the warmth of where he had touched her hands; calloused fingers against her jaw like a tangible weight, and Rogue has to remind herself that none of it had been of the material sort. For all they wanted in their hearts and in their heads, they had not given in the flesh, and the bleak truth of it is a bitter pill to swallow. She endures.

There’s a pair of girls heading towards her in the distance, both of them rosy cheeked with bare fingers linked together, and Rogue heaves out a weary sigh. It would be so easy to imagine herself in their place, able to express her desire through whatever carefree touches she may without a second thought, but it’s not the lack of intimacy alone that hangs like a noose around her neck. She’s found ways around it before, with mutants whose powers were suited enough to wage war upon her own. But they weren’t him. They would never have been him. And therein lies her damage.

For all the times she has made her way back to Gambit in the past, for all the times their souls have collided in the dark only for them to try wrangling their love into something that would take root and blossom into something more lasting, every failure that came after has taken another chink of her heart along with it, each one larger and more agonizing than the last. But sometimes, when he looks at her just that way to make her think they might be able to try if only one more time, Rogue is forced to remind herself that it’s easier just to snuff out the spark before it lights into ruinous flame, lest the next fall they take be enough to shatter her entirely. These violent delights have violent ends, indeed. But it doesn’t lessen the weight on her soul, and the warmth of his arms is a comfort she can never quite rid herself from longing after.

In the end, it’s always Remy. It has always been Remy.

But sometimes that’s just not enough.

Swallowing back the last lukewarm dregs of her beverage, Rogue discards her foam cup into the trash and, after pulling her scarf back over the lower half of her face, takes to the streets once again; just another unassuming stranger to the passing eye. This is the cross she must continue to bear, and when all is said and done, she may yet find herself all the better for it. But for now, her only hope is that she can maintain the strength to see herself through another day. For her own sake, if nothing else.

It’s the only choice she has left.


End file.
